“I don’t mind coming up here when I get a winner,” said Elder after steering Sporty Shannon to victory in the AIMMC Business Consulting Tamworth Pace.

Elder is in prime driving form of late and at Paceway Tamworth it was no different. He guided Sporty Shannon to her second career win from 64 starts.

“She hasn’t had the easiest of runs lately and she has been at the back of the fields but running home with no luck,” he said.

“I let them [the other runner] do whatever they were going to do early and just came home with the one run,” he added.

Sporty Shannon placed a gap on the field racing around the final turn to have an impressive 25.7 metre win over Bandan (Madi Young). Rusty Fella (Julie Weidemann) was another metre away third in the 2360 metre event.

Meanwhile fellow Hunter Valley reinsman Peter Hedges secured success in the opening event – the Global Bloodstock Pace – with an all the way win behind the Paul Collins-trained Sea Kingdom.

“He’s pretty green and only had three starts,” said Hedges on returning to scale.

Sea Kingdom made his debut for Sawyers Gully trainer Collins.

“I have driven him a couple of times for Paul in track work and he doesn’t turn a hair but he was off beam in the preliminary today, which had me a bit worried,” Hughes said.

“He will improve off that run for sure and Paul and Jackie are really good with their horses, so once they get him settled I think they will have a bit of fun with him.”

Sea Kingdom – a five-year-old Surfing Safari gelding, commenced as race favourite and had a 4.5 metre win over Magic Ivy (Jess Dart), with Northern Outlaw (Dennis Rogers) another 3.2 metres away third.

“It’s good to drive for Paul. I have had couple of drives for them recently but the last winner I drove for them would have easily been 10 years ago,” Hedges said.